How Sunderland's players are keeping fit during isolation after recent COVID-19 outbreak

The Black Cats were forced to shut the Academy of Light for ten days after a COVID-19 outbreak, which is believed to have resulted in at least ten cases.

The entire squad have been told to follow strict self-isolation guidelines, with the training ground set to reopen on December 27th.

Sunderland will then have just two days to prepare for the trip to Accrington Stanley, who are currently three places above them in the League One table.

Assistant head coach Jamie McAllister has been leading fitness sessions in zoom, as the players try and stay in shape ahead of the return to action after christmas.

"The manager has put a programme for us to follow on WhatsApp," Aiden McGeady told the #SAFCUnfiltered podcast.

"We obviously can't go outside while we're self-isolating, so we're housebound for the ten or twelve days that we're isolating.

"We've done HIT (high-intensity training) sessions and we did one on zoom, which the assistant manager took.

"It's obviously not ideal but to be fair it was quite hard.

"You get a sweat on so it's better doing that than nothing."

Sunderland are one of a number of League One clubs to have suffered an outbreak in recent weeks, with Ipswich Town calling for a brief suspension of fixtures.

They say all cases at their club are related to the new strain of COVID-19, which is believed to be more infectious.

The EFL currently have no plans to suspend fixtures, but are believed to be looking at measures such as increasing testing as a result of the outbreaks.

Ipswich boss Paul Lambert says the lower leagues should follow the example of the Premier League in testing players and staff regularly.

"If the testing was right down the leagues and everybody was being tested twice a week, like I’m pretty sure the Premier League is, then things would be better," Lambert said.

“It should be the same for everybody else because you’re putting people’s welfare at risk. I picked it up, it’s definitely not a great thing to catch.”

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